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Being a Disciple of Men or Jesus?

According to the International Churches of Christ, no one can be a disciple on their
own. Everyone must submit to another person in the ongoing process of discipleship. (Judy
Weger/Chris Fuqua, Faith and Convictions, audio tape, San Diego) ". . . you
must listen to your leaders, they want to help you. It should scare you, sober you, you
can still come, but only if you repent. Your attitude will prove whether you have a heart
of a disciple."

The member is told that their leaders want the very best for them and that they are
being set up for success. The leader should be unquestioningly obeyed even when their
advice is wrong. Commands are considered "advice" from the disciplers, yet one
is expected to obey them in order to please God. Obeying is considered a "heart
issue". If one fails to follow the advice to a tee, they can still be accepted as
long as they tried their best. However, if this continues, the member will be shown that
they have an independent spirit which is not acceptable to God. They will focus on showing
that they have pride and are rebellious if they fail to obey their leaders. Bible verses
will be lifted from their context or exaggerated in order to get the point across. If
there is any contention with your discipler, then the problem will be taken up by the next
highest person in the chain of command. In so doing, the confidentiality of one's sin
confessions can be lost. During this process, if the person is still uncompliant, they
will be belittled and made to feel guilty that they are not submitting to their leaders.
This can be over something in the disciple's life, such as taking a vacation, dating,
school work, or the amount of time one puts in for the Kingdom. In short, almost
everything in your life becomes subject to requiring approval from your discipler. The
reluctant member will either give in or they will have no peace. They will either leave or
fall in line - there is no in between. However, should a disciple consider leaving the
International Church of Christ, their decision will be made known and they will be labeled
as "leaving God". This brings on more guilt than the original disagreement, yet
this is the methodology used to get people to submit to the leaders in this movement. Even
the leaders must submit to the authority in disciplng. A couple, who were leaders, shared
with me what happened when they were late to church a few times. They are asked questions
like, "What are you doing?" or "Why are you showing up late?" These
are genuine concerns, however, because they had been late, they were asked to go over the
last 24 hours of their schedule and break this time into 15 minute blocks or periods. They
were told to get advice on their schedule in order to see where they were going wrong in
managing their time. This is a standard procedure in this movement, and only one of many
examples that demonstrate how far they extend their control through their discipling
methods in order to help people be better disciples of the church. Discipling is so
integrated as the gas is to the motor of this movement, that even in marriage it must be
rigorously practiced. "Without discipling you do open up your marriage to Satan.
He will absolutely just go to town and just tear it to shreds." (Dave and Judy Weger,
Always and Forever Marriage Retreat, audio tape, San Diego, 1991. Two Plus Two
Equals Solutions - Couple Discipling)

Mckean has said "No one can do it on their own. Everybody needs ongoing
discipleship. You are a disciple of God until you die you are a disciple of someone
else until you die." ("Why do you resist the Spirit ?" Mckean 1987)

Each discipler pours their own personality into their disciple. Zone leaders train
their disciplers and, in turn, the disciplers will train their disciples in the same way.
One can be trained to be a very hard and strict discipler or very dedicated yet
soft-spoken. Overall, the tendency is to produce more strict disciplers with intense
zealousness and dedication for the church. This explains why there is so much conformity
in this movement, yet there is also room for different degrees of dedication.

It's been said imitation is the best form of flattery so one can say this
whole movement's structure of discipleship is flattery in action. Consider these quotes as
the fundamentals of their teachings.

(Randy Haragan, Self Control and Perseverance, audio tape, 1991 SW. Conf.)
"Here's a very insightful point, if you're not imitating, you're dumb . . if you're a
disciple, a learner, a student, and you're not doing that, you're stinkin' it out. If you
want to be able to persevere it's going to require that you imitate. If you're gonna have
self control, you gotta imitate people with self-control. If you're gonna have more faith,
you gotta grab onto people that have more faith than you . . . get in there with some
people that are strong, hold onto them, grab their faith, take it, steal it, whatever you
have to do, imitate it and you'll be like them . . . " (Talking about singles)
"But, some of you are too dog-gone prideful to really imitate. Our church has not
gotten so sophisticated, that we've left imitation behind. No, no, no. It is the plan of
Jesus . . . my challenge to you sisters, you pick out some of the most spiritual sisters
in your zone and you just start imitating them . . . imitate their prayers, imitate their
quite time, imitate their evangelism, imitate their joy . . . .their enthusiasm, and
you'll become like them."

In this pyramid structure of imitating the person above as every one becomes carbon
copies of their leaders, parroting what they are taught. We can trace this to the source
who is Kip McKean, the capstone of the pyramid. One's personality can either be lost or at
best covered over with their disciple's personality.

What it comes down to is how does the leadership perceive who Christ is and how
He lived His life. If this is distorted, then as the process of copying goes from the top
of the pyramid spreading downward and outward, everyone else is certainly to be affected.
The idea of taking faith from someone else is foreign to the Bible. Our faith is developed
and strengthened, not stolen or borrowed. It's something personal that everyone has, if
not, they have not been saved. Their view of taking this vital essential from someone else
only shows they do not have what the Bible defines as living faith.

The faith they
speak about is parroting someone's personality along with their bible habits and
activities.

The simple denominator of learning and growing is also misplaced. They call it spending
time in the bible, we call it spending time with the Lord. while this on the surface seems
like only semantics it is much more. They are dependent on the human element from start to
finish which leaves out the H.Spirit for only a few necessities such as to supposedly make
them on fire to do more work.The conflict is Christ may say come away and spend time with
him nurturing a true and living relationship of knowing him, the person. They teach
against such notions by promoting the ongoing relationship to ones disciple and prayer
partner as a daily necessity. Making other disciples is the purpose for ones existence.
This can mean giving up ones job or schooling for the churches cause. Not a comforting
message for those who want to make an impact on society, nor a biblical one.

Articles are taken from the spiral bound book International Church of Christ Birth
of a Cult. (click> on books)

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